In college sports, the line between toughness and silence is often a blurry one.
Players and coaches alike are told that they need to “push through” anything that hurts, and to hide their emotions. In sports, as long as you’re winning, nothing else matters.
Dan Hurley, a two-time national champion head coach at the University of Connecticut, has begun to redefine what it means to be strong. Following a disappointing year for the Huskies, he has spoken up about mental health throughout the offseason.
Hurley has made a career off his fiery emotions and passion that have driven him to championship success. When gametime comes around, he looks like a wartime general, barking out orders and storming up and down the sideline.
Off the court, though, Hurley has been fighting a different kind of battle; staying mentally healthy in a field that requires obsession.
“I’ve struggled a lot and got to some really dark moments,” Hurley said. “Especially as a college student, and then as a young father and as a young husband, struggling career-wise, financially, struggling relationally to deliver for your family. Some very dark times.”
This struggle didn’t start in Storrs, Conn. Hurley comes from one of basketball’s royal families. His older brother, Bobby, was a two-time national champion at Duke and was the 1992 NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player. He is the son of legendary high school basketball coach Bob Hurley Sr.
Dan played for Seton Hall in college, where chants of “Bobby’s better” made the weight of being “the third Hurley” unbearable.
“It gets to the point where you’re a shell of yourself,” Hurley said on 60 Minutes on CBS News. “You’re not shooting the ball the way you have your whole life. You have a hard time catching the ball or even dribbling the ball.”
He departed from the team in the midst of the 1993 season. He did later return but could not recapture the joy of playing.
“My career eats away at me still,” Hurley said on 60 Minutes. “It bothers me if I see a picture of myself with the Seton Hall uniform or a clip. There’s an embarrassment about how that went.”
This is not just a personal story; it reflects the reality of countless athletes across sports. The collapse of his playing career shows the mental strain of being an athlete. It’s not a flaw, it’s a fact.
That pressure is relentless. Players at all levels — professional, college, high school — believe that even a crack in their composure could cost them scholarships, their reputation and even their careers. Hurley lived in that reality long before he had the clipboard in his hands.
Coaching gave Hurley another chance with basketball. However, with it came a whole new level of expectations.
Hurley inherited a program and fanbase at UConn that was desperate to return to the heights of the Jim Calhoun era in the 2000’s when he arrived in 2018. He restored Connecticut to its moniker as the “Basketball Capital of the World,” bringing home back-to-back national championships.
That success came with its own weight. Hurley admitted that last year’s quest for a three-peat nearly consumed him.
“I had put myself in a pretzel before the year started,” he said on 60 Minutes. “I had wound myself up. You saw Maui, you saw the monstrous intensity and maniacal egomaniac that was imploding on the island.”
Hurley says that last season changed him.
“My priorities got a little bit out of whack as a coach,” he said to NBC Sports’ John Fanta. “The internal pressure you put on yourself to win that third straight championship, the monster that you become in pursuit of that, set the ego off in a bad way and got me away from my priorities.”
Admissions like Hurley’s are rare in a profession where self-doubt is seen as weakness, but it’s necessary. Coaches are often faced with the same psychological stress as players.
Hurley’s struggles last year caused him to lose sight of what was truly important as a coach. That’s when Geno Auriemma, 12-time national champion and UConn women’s basketball coach, offered him a crucial piece of advice.
Hurley wrote in his book “Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes to Be Great” about the conversation he had with Auriemma following the team’s shocking winless weekend in Maui.
“If the only gratification and the only part of coaching that excites you is winning the national championship, then you’ve lost your way, buddy! Where’s the joy in the things that you’ve always been about as a coach before you went on the championship run, like relationships with your players, like helping people get better. Like making your team the best it can be.”
This lesson from Auriemma has helped reshape Hurley’s outlook on coaching. The job is no longer just about hanging banners for UConn, it’s about helping to lead his players through life.
“Yeah, for me, it’s important to be an advocate for mental health,” Hurley said. “Living the purpose that I do every day, helping develop and lead young men and hopefully produce championships for the great fans of Connecticut.”
Hurley’s newfound perspective hasn’t made him any less competitive. He still measures his team by the UConn standard of national championships but is now aware of the cost of letting the pursuit consume him.
“It’s okay to take joy… while you’re chasing it,” Hurley said.